Attending the conference and want to join FIRST?

What are the benefits of FIRST?

ACCESS TO THE COMMUNITY
Computer security incidents do not respect geographical, time zone or administrative boundaries in the global Internet. Resolution of any computer security incident generally involves many sites and countries globally. Each incident response and security team can assist other teams and coordinate the appropriate response to provide a global solution to the problem.

TRUSTED FORUM
Many companies find it difficult to share information, FIRST provides a forum for facilitating trusted interactions among incident response and security teams. Assistance for interactions is available on either a team to team basis (through introduction to teams) or by using the FIRST infrastructure to share information among all members in a secure way

SYMPOSIA and TECHNICAL COLLOQUIA
FIRST hosts Symposia and Technical Colloquia (TCs) globally in various regions throughout the year - providing a discussion forum for FIRST member teams only to share information about vulnerabilities, incidents, tools and all other issues that affect the operation of incident response and security teams.

BEST PRACTICES, PRESENTATIONS AND TRAINING MATERIAL
New incident response and security teams can benefit from membership to FIRST by improving communication and forming alliances with peer teams, and exchanging ideas and best practice. FIRST members have written many papers and presentations that are available on the FIRST member web site. FIRST also collects training materials for members to use as part of in-house trainings and CERT team start up resources. 

COMMUNICATIONS AND DISCUSSION LISTS
FIRST is designed to facilitate communication between incident response and security teams to assist in promoting prompt and effective resolution to computer security incidents. Members are able to participate in a FIRST discussion list to be kept informed about security incidents, interesting stories and as a forum to post their questions, concerns and thoughts for group discussion.  The collection of teams which compose FIRST provides expertise covering a wide variety of incident response and security issues, with globally recognized experts communicating to solve problems.

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS
FIRST has several Special Interest Groups, these exist to provide a forum where FIRST Members can discuss topics of common interest to the Incident Response community. A SIG is a group of individuals composed of FIRST Members and invited parties, typically coming together to explore a specific technology area, with a goal of collaborating and sharing expertise and experiences to address common challenges. Some of these SIG’s are listed below:

Current FIRST Special Interest Groups

• Abuse Handling (AH-SIG)
• Artifact Analysis (AA-SIG)
• Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS-SIG)
• Internet Infrastructure Vendor (Vendor SIG)
• Law Enforcement/CSIRT Cooperation (LECC-SIG)
• Network Monitoring (NM-SIG)

Don’t see a SIG that you would like to start?  Just let us know at first-sec@first.org!

Are you interested in joining FIRST?

Please leave your business card or e-mail address and phone number at the registration desk and a Steering Committee member will contact you and guide you through the process. You may also contact the FIRST Secretariat at first-sec@first.org.

1. Spend time networking at the conference knowing that 2 sponsoring full FIRST members are needed to apply.  If you are having trouble – let us know and the FIRST SC will help make introductions!
2. FIRST Secretariat Services (FSS) is available to answer your questions at the conference or at first-sec@first.org. FSS will also assign you a shepherd - a member of the FIRST membership committee, who will help the applying team and the sponsors throughout the whole process.
3. Fill out the membership application form that can be found online at www.first.org. The sponsors and the shepherd will help if there are any problems
4. Write an application letter stating that you want to join FIRST, and the benefits you can bring to FIRST.
5. One of the sponsors must conduct a site visit and submit a report. Both sponsors write a letter introducing and recommending the applying team for a FIRST full membership. Sponsors must also sign the applying team rep PGP key and team key.
6. Both of the sponsors submit the entire application package to first-sec@first.org.
7. FSS will review the application and forward to the FIRST Membership Committee (MC) for review and approval. If there are questions, the team will be contacted by the MC.
8. The whole application is posted for FIRST member feedback and the FIRST Steering Committee reviews with a recommendation of the membership to accept it.  Once accepted – you will be notified by the SC Chair and sent a dues invoice.

What would you like FIRST to address

Are we covering all the areas that you believe we should be? Is there any areas or subjects that you believe FIRST as an organization should be addressing? 

Let us know at first-sec@first.org!